Ken Tumin founded the Bank Deals Blog in 2005 and has been passionately covering the best deposit deals ever since. He is frequently referenced by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications as a top expert, but he is first and foremost a fellow deal seeker and member of the wonderful community of savers that frequents DepositAccounts.

As of today, 88% of the readers who took my Fed Rate Hike Poll anticipate three or fewer Fed rate hikes in 2017. This prediction is inline with what the Fed suggested last month with its dot plot and inline with the current Fed fund futures, which indicate only a 14% chance of more than three rate hikes in 2017 (Please take the poll if you haven’t already).

This is a good reminder that rate hikes this year (and in the next couple of years) will likely to be gradual....

Happy New Year! Will 2017 be the year when savers finally start seeing some relief from these ultra low interest rates?

You can find reasons to be optimistic in the last two months of 2016. First, the markets reacted positively to Trump’s election. Since the election, the 10-year Treasury yield has increased from 1.88% to 2.45%. According to this Wall Street Journal article:

December’s Fed meeting was another reason to be optimistic for rising rates in 2017. In addition to hiking the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, the Fed’s...

For savers who have lived with the ultra low interest rate environment for the last eight years, they may take some comfort that President-elect Donald Trump has said “Yellen is keeping rates too low, too long.” A Trump Presidency could speed up the pace of Fed rate hikes, and based on interest rate history, deposit rates do track Fed rate hikes and have often outpaced Fed rate increases.

The first way a Trump Presidency may speed up the pace of Fed rate hikes is by changing the Fed. The most...

International Credit Union (ICU) Week begins today (Oct 17), and ICU Day is Thursday (Oct 20). ICU Day has been celebrated on the third Thursday of October since 1948. It’s not only celebrated in the U.S., but it’s also celebrated in many other countries that are part of the World Council of Credit Unions. The Council’s website lists the countries with membership. It’s interesting that several European nations are not listed. It appears cooperative savings banks take the place of credit unions in those countries.

New rules for money market funds that take effect today (October 14) will fundamentally change the way money market funds operate. The new rules are intended to prevent runs on money market funds like what was seen in the 2008 financial crisis. These rules only affect money market funds (MMFs) which are mutual funds available from brokerage firms.They don’t affect any deposit accounts including money market accounts which are essentially the same as savings accounts.

The most important change for individual retail investors is that prime and municipal money...

While America is no doubt a most litigious society, guess who it’s getting harder to sue? Your bank. According to The Pew Charitable Trust, many account agreements restrict the legal recourse available to consumers who have disputes with their banks.

You may not have even been aware of the clauses in contracts that can be hard to find in all the fine print. But often, whether you’re signing on for a credit card, payday loan, or student loan, you give up your right to participate in a group lawsuit if...

I’ve been reporting on high-yield reward checking accounts for 10 years now. I thought this would be a good time to mark this milestone.

Time sure has gone by fast, I started blogging on bank deals in 2005, and in 2006, I began coming across high-yield checking accounts from community banks and credit unions that had a catch: the high-yield had some activity requirements. Debit card usage was the main one that required some effort (see my reward checking overview for more details of the activity requirements). For savers who...

This is the second of a two-part series on Same-Day ACH. The first article looked at how the rules will change, and this article will look more specifically at how the new rules will impact banks.

Without question, the move from 1-3 day ACH to Same-day ACH will bring gain and some pains. Customers will love getting access to their money quickly, but banks will feel the effect of having to revamp systems. Financial institutions will have hoops to jump through to be compliant.

This is the first of a two-part series on Same-Day ACH. The first article looks at how the rules will change, and the next article will look more specifically at how the new rules will impact banks.

What a difference a day makes, especially if you’re talking about the movement of money. According to the Eighth Annual Billing Household Survey from Fiserv, more than 80% of people polled say real-time or same-day processing is important when paying bills.

Starting in September money will indeed move faster when Same-day ACH becomes a...

Last year many economists were predicting a Fed rate hike in June. They were off by six months. The Fed rate hike finally came, but it wasn’t until December. There are two things to note from this. First, it’s very difficult to predict interest rate changes. Second, there has been a long history of delayed rate hikes. It’s a good idea to remember these two things when thinking about your strategy with the money you want to keep in deposit accounts.